My friend Bob Carlton posted this excerpt from  David Scharfenberg’s op-ed in the Globe, “So maybe the slackers had it right after all”…

…[We] understood, before most, that something had shifted – that we were moving to an economy of telecommuters and independent contractors and less-than-loyal employers.

And while the best minds on Wall Street cooked up the real estate mess that destroyed a global economy, we were sensible enough to steer clear of that overpriced condo and move into a dingy, three-bedroom rental with a few of our meathead friends.

You see, while Alan Greenspan and Countrywide Financial were creating a capitalism of disastrous excess, we were busy working on a more workable model. Not without its indulgences, of course. The exuberance of the dot-com bubble was undoubtedly irrational. But we did pretty well, this little slice of Generation X.

We brought you the Internet, worked on green technology, and filled the ranks of Teach for America. We crossed the color line, ate local produce, and bought secondhand clothing. We lived in smaller spaces, drove smaller cars, and took the subway to work.

It all seemed like a quaint liberal fantasy at the time. And on some level it was. But now, with a creaking economy and an overheated planet, it reads more like a survival manual: a guide to multicultural living in an increasingly diverse society, an incubator for the technology that might save the American auto industry, an antidote to our awful adventures in sprawl.

Of course, we could abandon this life as we get older, I suppose. We could grow impatient with our little apartments and cramped hatchbacks. We could set our sights on the kind of suburban existence we’ve forsaken. But I’d like to think we’re smarter than that.

We created something worthwhile – a sustainable neighborhood, a tech future, a life we can manage. And we won’t let it go too easily.

At least I hope not. As the nation rebuilds a crumbling capitalism, it could use a little perspective, a little wisdom. Bet you didn’t think you’d get it from us.

I wonder what religious historians might say about my generation of spiritual quirks. While Gen-X & Yers have been described as postmoderns, sometimes “relativists,” “comfortable with ambiguity and contradiction,”  and even non-conformists, I often see just as much polarization, infighting, and conformity to greed in these generations as in our predecessors.

We are still in a world of transition, to be sure. But old habits die hard, especially those ingrained in our genetic memory.  Nevertheless, we hope to help create a better world…and maybe even a more Christ-like spirituality. It may look like a mess, but I think it can be a beautiful thing…although beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Anyway, I have hope.

Older generations are skeptical of us. Hell, we are skeptical of oursleves. So don’t count on us! …But don’t count us out either.

Here’s an excerpt of the main point I was trying to make in a comment I posted on a good friend’s blog recently. This lacks full context, so please excuse any apparent gaps in reasoning, but this helped me organize my thoughts around the subject:

I think of statistics showing the fact that today’s Christians are statistically no different, in terms of overall morality, than non-Christians. And so this is an assertion that some postmodern Christians are trying to make: Orthodoxy may not be the transformative thing we have thought it to be for the past thousand years or so.

So what is that thing that really transforms us? If right belief seems only to create exclusive social groups that only welcome those who submit to their criteria for inclusion, and if this right belief, before which we have prostrated ourselves for centuries, statistically is not the essence that both initiates and sustains transformation, perhaps we need to admit the value of semper reformanda, humble ourselves before God and each other, and keep searching…Or at least admit that we may not be so sure as we have led on.

As a reminder, the Fathers said to each other during the canonization process, (you know the exact council more than I do, I’m sure), “This seems right to us and the Spirit…” They were not certain. I think we have all become so certain that all we are about is proving the validity of our certainty. And I’m willing to venture beyond that.

Somewhere I heard that some of us don’t believe in God until we need someone to blame.
I’ll add to that…

some of us quote God only when we need someone to justify our own words.

some of us search the Bible only when we have a point to make.

some of us cite the teachings of Jesus, but mostly to support our own side’s agenda, be it
liberal or conservative or even “both and neither.”

some of us pray, but usually just to beat the other guy and win the game.

some of us write witty musings like this, but often to make people think we’re wise or deep or cool or whatever…when we’re really just trying to figure things out for ourselves and find some sort of comfort in our own storm of contradictions and hypocrisy.

Blogs are supposed to be original I suppose, but I can’t pass up the opportunity to share this gem of inspiration:

Do not be too quick to assume your enemy is a savage just because he is your enemy. Perhaps he is your enemy because he thinks you are a savage. Or perhaps he is afraid of you because he feels that you are afraid of him. And perhaps if he believed you were capable of loving him he would no longer be your enemy.

Do not be too quick to assume that your enemy is an enemy of God just because he is your enemy. Perhaps he is your enemy precisely because he can find nothing in you that gives glory to God. Perhaps he fears you because he can find nothing in you of God’s love and God’s kindness and God’s patience and mercy and understanding of the weaknesses of men.

Do not be too quick to condemn the man who no longer believes in God, for it is perhaps your own coldness and avarice, your mediocrity and materialism, your sensuality and selfishness that have killed his faith.

–T. Merton

Felt like blabbing a bit today…. So while reading this, keep in mind that I am not making any theological points here whatsoever, and the apologetics of all this will have to wait. This does not consider at all what many may regard as the essentials of the faith, so I’m sure I’ll piss someone off. Oh well.

Peering into my cracked crystal ball

Here’s what I think the Christianity of the not-so-distant future will look like: Catholimainlinevangelical (I’ll call it “CME”) on one side and Post-whatever (PW) on the other; of course, somewhere in the background we’ll always have the Orthodox. (I’m not being scientific with all this here, so humor me.)

So in addition to the few past schisms (about every 500 years or so), we are having a new one now, and I imagine when the waters subside, a quadrant of volcanic islands will be left: CME, PW, and Orthodox, then a fourth one I’ll call “other,” for lack of time in thinking up a more clever label. That fourth one will sloppily lump in those others like Quakers, etc., etc, that have contributed greatly to our faith but might not neatly fit into the PW category and certainly don’t fit in the other two… Although the PWs just might even more closely resemble this “other” than anything else.

(Now, to really screw with this line of thinking, I’ll also pose here this thought: Beyond all this, I can imagine a day when most other religions will complete their own cycle of turmoil (which is also happening right now) and we’ll end up with a really confusing thing…one island, and it’s not called Universalism. It’s much bigger than that. I really think this could happen, although to be sure, it most definitely will be a “volcanic” island and will be in development for centuries and will be in near-constant flux.)

Anyway, the first thing that may perk up people’s ears is the seeming improbability of the merging of Catholicism, Mainline Protestantism and Evangelicalism, which in the 20th century (at least) apparently swore to leave each other on their own. But the inescapable fact remains that all three of these grand traditions are in dramatic flux, or at least in a period of significant reevaluation and adjustment, and I think they are increasingly becoming more dependent on each other for survival in our postmodern era. I won’t even go into the lessons the leadership of both the Catholic and Anglican churches learned in centuries past in confronting major global philosophical shifts. And this goes well beyond the ecumenical movement. That effort to bring all churches together was just the first overt manifestation of what must inevitably happen if “traditional” Christianity is to survive at all beyond the 21st century.

Although historically speaking Evangelicalism’s departure from Mainline was quite recent, I think both of these parties are realizing that the need for each other goes beyond just tolerance for the other. And while each still occasionally berates the other, signs are showing that the twain shall eventually meet again, for more than just an ecumenical council. I think a blog from iMonk hints at both the struggles and the requirements associated with what I think will eventually result in a merger, although at first glance of his blog one might be tempted to think otherwise.

10 Facts

(Again, not scientific, but I’m sure most may identify with this list. They get more abstract/futuristic as you go down the list, so I won’t bet on anything, but they are my prediction…)

1. Mainline churches are still suffering from mass aging/die-off, literally, as is traditional Catholicism.

2. While mainline churches have been in decline for many years, they are showing signs of new growth (see Bass interview, part 1).

3. Some of the new growth is from post-evangelical attendance.

4. Other post-evangelicals are heading elsewhere.

5. Some of those have gone back to Rome (Catholicism).

6. Others of those have gone (way) back to Constantinople (Orthodox).

7. Still other post-whatevers (including post evangelicals, post-catholics  and post-mainliners) have given up on traditional church altogether, but not on God/Jesus, and have found PW homes, such as house churches, “emergent” churches, New Monastic communities, etc. Note that I’m only including those post-whatevers who would maintain that faith/God/jesus, etc., are still big parts of their daily life; this does not include those who have rejected all forms of faith, etc.

8. The PW faith (many currently refer to it as “emerging/emergent” or even postmodern spirituality, but I think it will go beyond that) is not just an obscure new theory. It is not merely a mood, as Ravi Z. has described it. It is a fact of life that reflects a thoroughly recognized, fundamental shift (see Bass interview, part 6) in the global philosophical mindset. In fact, signs of this “post-ness” can be seen in almost all of the other major religions of the world.

9. Traditional churches, including the massive Roman church, will become increasingly niched while the PW faith develops and dominates the landscape (even if that landscape does not include church buildings).

10. PWs will grow tired of having to call themselves “post-”  and will seek a more positive orientation that illustrates what they are “for” instead of what they are against. This will eventually result in a more “organized” (even if it is anti-organized) model to reflect their values. It is human nature to organize, even for nonconformists. This is why I think the movement will eventually have to be named something other than by its “post” moniker, because it will become “post-post” because of the need for futher development.

Why?

I’ll leave the answer to that for another time. I’ve already blabbed on enough, so maybe others can take it from here. In addition to the several links I’ve provided above, I will say much of my (flawed?) thinking was inspired by The Great Emergence, by Phyllis Tickle and A Heretic’s Guide to Eternity, by Spencer Burke, among several others.

As usual, I’ve kept silent the last couple weeks, withholding my words until some abstract, vague resolution has popped its beady little eyes out of the ground-hog hole of my soul…or maybe just procrastinating out of fear… So anyway, here’s what’s happened:

The Franciscan Retreat

Returned a couple weeks ago from a wonderful time of contemplation in the outskirts of San Antonio. My wife and I took part in a Franciscan Retreat hosted by Gordon Atkinson, the Real Live Preacher and his amazingly gracious people at Covenant Center for Contemplative Christianity.

It has taken some time for me to process the experience. I’ll mention just a couple highlights in the way our very loose itinerary materialized… (You’ll need to experience for yourself to truly appreciate it…so consider including it in next year’s plans…)

A summary thought about the retreat: About the most wonderful thing about the retreat was that there were people from all walks of life there, from various parts of the nation (Brooklyn, Austin, The Midwest, etc.)…and it was nice and small. About 15 or 20 of us. Some Christians, some atheists, or somewhere in-between, some Unitarian-Universalists, some Baptists (or post-Baptists), etc. etc. etc. …ALL of us were pilgrims of some sort. And here’s the best part: Communion…

I, like most Christians, was taught that communion should only be taken if (1) you’re a bona-fide, publicly-announced Christian, and (2) if you’re completely caught up on your confessions of the sins in your life. Otherwise, you’d be taking the body if Christ “to the eternal damnation of your soul” or something like that.

Well, perhaps the biggest thing that touched me deeply during this time in San Antonio was the communion time. Gordon, in my mind, illustrated the true heart of Christ when he got up in front of everyne and invited EVERYONE to partake of the bread and wine…everyone, regardless of beliefs, or spiritual position or whatever. And I think that’s exactly how Jesus would do it. I think Jesus would say, especially of his own offering/sacrifice, something like, “I don’t give a shit if you’re a Jew, gentile, Samaritan, pagan, Wiccan, atheist, Pharisee, Christian, Buddhist, gay/lesbian, Catholic, Charismatic, agnostic..whatever….YOU are welcome to have my love and acceptance… It’s not about who is ‘in’ or ‘out’…this is not a club…this is love.”

Other samplings from my itinerary…

5- 7am: Pray, Chant/Sing, Pray … After that, I walked a wilderness path through oaks and cacti and meditated my way through a labyrinth. Even in my pre-dawn walk, I found it somewhat difficult to quiet my thoughts and allow space in my soul. If nothing else, this helped me realize how noisy a place my head can be…even just after waking up. And, in a time when I usually feel closest to God, especially in such a natural setting, I became aware of a stagnant feeling in myself, some sort of absence of God in that moment, which led to a mild frustration. Thankfully, I had my handy Pocket Thomas Merton with me, from which this little gem came:

“God approaches our minds by receding from them. We can never fully know him if we think of him as an object of capture…. Wherever we are, we find that he has just departed. Wherever we go, we discover that he has just arrived before us.”

This helped me acknowledge the frustration without focusing on it. Then I just tried to acknowledge the positive things going on around me… A pair of cardinals chasing each other through the air. A stink bug slowly staggering across the pebbles. The sauna-like smell of juniper/cedar trees being heated by the rising sun. Squirrels chattering at me from the trees. The sound of a nearby cow calling her neighbors. My sandals flip-flopping and softly crunching the twigs beneath them. And the feeling of my own breath passing through my nostrils and throat. …Wow…all the life around me and within me! Maybe God is here…inside me and outside me, or at least his radiant energy.

9-1030am: Pray/Sing/Chant/Pray some more. Then we learned a little more about St. Francis and his “Rule of Life” and how to make our own rule of life. (The Franciscans had basically three ‘rules’ categories, those for fellow monks (the Franciscan order rules) and clergy, those for their sisters, or nuns, and rules for laity or the ‘regular’ people around them. But all the rules centered around the three vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.)

This was beautifully practical. Regardless of your spiritual beliefs, this is a great way to help yourself to start living intentionally: Make a list with three categories, “Values,” “Disciplines,” and “Rules.” My example:

Value: The End of Extreme Poverty / Discipline: Learn the facts and donate to help / Rule: Finish reading The End of Poverty and Donate through Kiva.org at least once a year.

…So that’s one of the most practical things I’ve ever learned in ANY religious-type setting! Thank you Gordon and everyone else there! (By the way, I highly recommend you check out the beautiful jewelry art by Jeanene, Gordon’s wife.)

New Monastics–Irrelevant Idealists or World Changers?

Toward the close of the weekend, I had a chance to speak to my friend Paul about New Monasticism. Although I know some about the movement, he knows a hell of a lot more than I do, so I had some questions for him, with particular regards to the overall idea behind it. I’m a fan of the concepts and people involved in it (whether they claim that specific term or not), people like Shane Claiborne at The Simple Way and my friend Gideon at Vox Veniae here in Austin, but I just had to ask rhetorically, from a practical perspective, “What’s the point?” Why get a bunch of of your friends together, buy houses in the same neighborhood and pool resources and live together and do almost everything together, baby-sitting for each other and sharing meals every night and neat things like that…

Because while I am a sort of idealist, I am also a sometimes-depressive realist. Because there are small groups of revolutionary-minded people all over the place that want to change the world by living by example…but unfortunately, those groups often remain just that…a small group of idealists. But what I do see in this is, while many of these groups may not ‘change the world’ at large, they are changing their world…the one at their doorsteps.

They are grabbing the hands that they can reach right now. And that is what it’s a ll about. And as Paul said it…It’s just about living intentionally and trying to affect positive change where you really can. And in my mind…that truly is realistic. And that’s what St. Francis did…although in helping his local ‘world’ he changed the whole world…so much so that I am writing about his impact today, hundreds and hundreds of years later.

Will we ever move beyond trend-setting Christianity?

Even in reacting against commercialized, monopolized (even established) religion and attempting to create an ‘independent,’ roots-focused form of Christianity, we always end up packaging our own version of it, just like those before us, who we accused of doing the same.

It reminds me of the senior paper I wrote years ago on Surrealist poetry. The surrealists were an outgrowth of the Dada movement, which was entirely, radically anti-establishment, at least in terms of literature. True to its intended form, Dada quickly devoured itself as soon as its adherents began seeing signs of organization. (How punk of them!) The Dadaists who remained after the implosion, or at least those who had emerged from their drug-induced hibernation during WWI, gradually coagulated into a milder form of Dada, the surrealists.

The surrealists (at least the poets who started the whole thing) were a rag-tag group of artist-wanderers who could never feel at home within the traditionalist, established art-snob bubble. They continually pushed boundaries. They were constantly experimenting. they were lively. They were nihilists, but not as self-destructive as the predecessors. And the outside world started paying attention to them because they were just reputable enough to hold the attention of the establishment. Then came other artists who had been growing tired of snob-dom and found a new home within the ranks of the surrealists. People like painter Salvador Dali. They were welcomed. And then, somehow over the years it became cool to be surreal. Next thing you know, more and more established artists began experimenting outside the traditional bounds. And many saw that it was good…and some did not.

Ironically, perhaps the one thing that started the packaging of surrealism was “The Surrealist Manifesto,” composed by a variety of kewl, hip boundary-pushers. it was supposed to be an anti-manifesto. and in a sense it was. But it was also the primary sign of selling out. And though one could never really say surrealism became the mainstream, in a way it did. Just look at Pollack and other modern abstract practitioners. You think they were taking cues from traditionalists? Not quite. And now we have Low-Brow…oh, that’s so kewl. Sure selling out has its advantages: It spreads the word. Millions and millions of others around the world accept the revolution…and a new world is born because the boundary-pushers were finally recognized by the world at large. But seriously, is a ‘new world’ really born? Or is it just the same-old, same-old in a new package that has potential to increase…not awareness…but market share?

I suppose the argument may just dwindle down into the half-empty, half-full argument. Maybe I’m just an eternal cynic, even of movements I deeply appreciate….

Ravi Zacharias once said that postmodernism is a mood. I entirely disagreed with him. Because it is now a simple fact of life…much more than a mood or a trend. (Watch my conversation with author/historian Diana Butler Bass about this here…click on the thumb that says, “Part 6: Postmodernism”.) However, in some cases, I’m starting to believe him, to a point. Instead of simply accepting our present worldview as just something we are/do, enterprising Christians are gradually packaging our ‘new’ way of life into the zip-locked category of ‘postmodern spirituality.’

I was speaking with Spencer Burke late last year when he was planning a webcast conversation called “Has Emergent Been Shrinkwrapped Too?” As you may know, ‘emergent’ has become synonymous with postmodern spirituality. But it starting to seem like Emergent Village, by default, may unintentionally (I hope it’s unintentional) be monopolizing a precious move of God’s spirit throughout the Church at large. A movement that roots down at least 30 years ago at the Greenbelt festivals in the UK is now being touted to have started here in America with the Leadership Network, and now is headquartered within the Emergent Village organization. And almost every major (Christian) book publisher has started a new line targeting this new niche. So now it’s been reduced to a market niche. Sad, but true.

Now don’t get me wrong, Doug Pagitt (one of Emergent Village’s founders), is a truly wonderful person with wonderful goals and he’s sincerely trying keep the soul in it all. I admire him. But, once gain, it just seems to be happening by default. Maybe it’s just that the commercial machine has already started overtaking the tracks of the trailblazers. (By the way, notice that I have not mentioned Brian McLaren here. This is intentional, and maybe I’ll explain it in another post.)

But the hard part of all this is that the all the positives are also the negatives, and vice versa. So, although I am so happy to hear that some in the established church are finally catching wind of this movement, I am also concerned that the heavy hitters are simply going to monopolize and commercialize yet another sincere, precious thing. Sure, I want millions of others to appreciate it and learn and grow from it all…but, like so much else, not at the expense of the soul behind, within and under it.

Of course, what’s new? The exact same thing happened with the very first version of the teachings of Christ. Once it gained the attention of the emperor (Constantine), it became an empire. Unfortunately, that’s just the way things seem to go.

But do you think there could ever be a way to prevent this? Some way of delicately balancing revolution and commercial success? Somehow finding the line between spreading sincere, positive change and superficial popularity? Is there a way to spread the word without diluting it?

If you know the answers to these questions, please let me know. In the meantime, I’ll just categorize myself as a post-postmodern. Maybe I’ll start a trend. Next thing you know they’ll have a music section with that name in Family Christian Bookstores racks….Then maybe I’ll be one of the cool people.